144 AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS. 



successful. A matter of such importance to our financial well-being 

 should receive your careful and generous attention. 



It is the fixed purpose of this organization to secure, if possible, 

 certain needed legislative reforms. However urgent and emphatic may 

 be our demands, experience teaches us "that they are of no avail unless 

 supported and enforced by such practical methods as will convince the 

 law-making power of our determination and ability to prosecute them 

 to a successful issue. 



Let this Supreme Council, representing all parts of the country, and 

 that great interest that pays over eighty per cent of all taxes of the coun- 

 try, assert and maintain its dignity and its solemn purpose to protect and 

 advance the interests of its constituency, by declaring their legislative 

 needs, and by showing to the American Congress that when its demands 

 on paper are ignored, it can and will vindicate and maintain its claims 

 at the ballot box. Our recent experience with that body, as well as 

 with the leaders of the two great political parties of the country, should 

 admonish us that the time has arrived when this great organization 

 should take bold and determined action. 



To this end, I respectfully recommend that this council authorize the 

 organization of a body to be known as the National Legislative Council 

 of the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union, to whom shall 

 be committed the charge of such legislative reforms as may be indicated 

 by your body. I would respectfully suggest that the Legislative Council 

 be composed of your national president, who shall be ex officio chairman, 

 and the presidents of all States represented in the Supreme Council ; 

 and that this body shall hold its annual meeting within sixty days after 

 the adjournment of the Supreme Council, at such time and place as may 

 be indicated by the national president ; and that it be empowered and 

 authorized to appoint such legislative committees as in its judgment 

 may be wise ; and that it be required to transmit to each of the States, 

 in printed form, through the national secretary, for distribution to the 

 reform press, lecturers, and membership of the order, all measures or 

 bills (together with the arguments in their favor), as they may decide 

 should be enacted into laws. Let it be required, further, that the Legis- 

 lative Council shall keep a correct record of all its proceedings, which 

 shall be submitted through its chairman to the next annual meeting of 

 the Supreme Council. 



This body composed, as it would be, of presumably the best and 

 wisest men of our order, and coming fresh from the people of each 

 State, and being thoroughly conversant with the measures of legislation 

 proposed, and acting in harmonious concert on all questions for the com- 



